I Know What I Saw

16 Saturday

By the time I reach south-east London, it is around midday. Even though the world is immense and for all intents and purposes boundless, we find ourselves locked into an orbit of just a few miles. Familiarity draws us in, a home for our troubles. I need it, the familiarity, to concentrate without being distracted by my environment. That’s why I’m here, in Dulwich Park, with the beginning of a headache but a clear mind, to think.

It was always Grace, this place. A memory crashes around me, or a dream. There’s a bench and I’m digging with my hands. The earth gives way and then nothing more.

We could have made it work. I still believe that.

I remember reading to her under the tree there and then reuniting with her after we split up. In a way we grew together in this place, the trees and us, sapling to oak. Once, I took her blindfolded across the park in the middle of summer. Her birthday was in December but she hated the winter. That year we had decided to celebrate it in August when the sun was shining so she could have a birthday photograph in the sun. I had hidden a picnic of sandwiches and champagne by some trees earlier in the morning and then surprised her by having Seb and Nina turn up.

‘Oh, my God. Xander!’

‘Happy not birthday, Mabe.’

I remember another time, a few weeks after the incident with Ariel. I had tried to convince myself and her that I wasn’t jealous, or more accurately that I no longer was, and that I understood my jealousy was a violation of her trust. I walked her casually through the park – a small box burning a hole in my pocket. There was no reason to be nervous, not really – it was just a peace offering but it had the quality of a proposal. Perhaps it was, in a way. We ambled hand in hand towards the boating pond but skirted the edge. There had been a time when Grace pulled me towards boats but eventually she gave up when I’d resisted enough times. I hadn’t wanted to dilute the day that we’d taken the boat at midnight. To get on one of these pond boats seemed like a violation of that memory. We passed the parked green pedalos and were a few paces on when I turned her back.

‘C’mon then, Mabe,’ I said. ‘Just this once.’

She raised her eyebrows in surprise and then lit up. After picking her way artfully on to the boat, she sat grinning on the bench seat, while I paid. The sun was shining hard so that by the time I had manoeuvred us out of the mooring, I was already flushed through with heat. I rested a little then as the boat glided under its own momentum. I produced the box. Heart beating.

‘It’s a conch,’ I said as she lifted out the tiny gold shell suspended on a gold chain. ‘Fibonacci and all that,’ I said, trying to sound careless about it.

She put it straight on and beamed at me as I breathed out relief.

She wore it then, every day.

Until she didn’t.

And then there were the gifts from Ariel. Little nothings, really. Cheap trinkets from China Town: yin and yang notepaper, joss sticks, badges with Buddhist symbols on them. The truth was that I wouldn’t have been so jealous if I hadn’t met him. He was sylph-like and moved as if dancing every step. And there was I, cumbersome, big, static. Still, I think I could have got over it had I not seen how he looked at her, like prey. And more than that, how she didn’t see it. I couldn’t believe that she didn’t know about men who preyed.

Our argument came with a smiling face. A small jade Buddha. It had been a Christmas present (Grace didn’t even see how facile that was, a Buddhist statue at Christmas). She had unwrapped the tissue in front of me and pulled the little figure into the morning light and gazed at it a second too long. Stroked the smooth head a little too delicately.

‘So thoughtful of him,’ she’d said and placed it carefully on the mantel.

A day or two later I accidentally knocked it off. It was a common-or-garden dusting accident.

‘Xander!’ she said when she saw the chip. ‘You did that deliberately!’

‘It was an accident!’ I said, laughing. The laughter went down badly, so in the end to prove it was an accident I agreed that Grace could have it in the bedroom. We only had one bedside table, so there it stayed, in benign splendour, next to me.

The smiling green man made my stomach turn every time I saw it. So one night, as I turned out the light, I winked at the statue and rolled into bed. Later, when it was dark and Grace was fully entombed in sleep, the Lord Buddha suffered another terrible accident. This time, he shattered into a thousand glistening lives.

In the morning, Grace left. Left me.

It was a Saturday and she packed a bag and strode darkly out of the house.

‘Where are you going? It was an accident.’

She said nothing except what she signalled by slamming the front door as she left.

I was so angry that she had ruined our only day off together that I spent the time doing the things we’d usually do together on a Saturday. First, a trip to the Horniman grounds. I rooted around before heading to our bench and sitting there for a while, gazing out over the views of London. Then I went home for brunch, and ate croissants over the papers. I kept expecting to see her come in through the doors with an apology, but she never did. By the time the phone rang I had swung back and forth so many times between annoyance and rage that I couldn’t settle. It was just a bloody cheap toy you could pick up anywhere. Why all this drama? Unless it meant more to her than she’d admitted.

So when the phone rang that night, I answered it with a wash of gratitude and relief. I knew I was always going to forgive her. Of course I was.

‘Hi, Mabel,’ I said.

‘Hi, Xander. It’s Seb. Grace is with us.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘When is she coming back?’

‘That depends on you,’ he said and then sighed over the line. The phone changed hands and then Grace was on.

‘Meet me at our bench if you want to,’ she said plainly and then hung up.

It was here that I came – where I am now – to this very spot, and I apologised to her. The expanse of green and its open air gave me, and gives me now, a sense of freedom. It makes me feel as if there is room for my mind to sift and reason. Back then I reasoned that Grace loved me. She knew me, she knew I loved her. Ariel was nothing, a distraction. And my jealousy was just proof of how much I loved her.

But now the process of thinking makes me quiver. Every cell in my head that is occupied by this murder makes my head throb. I breathe until the facts become clear: this man must have killed the woman. He arranged for people to move the body. There was clear evidence of that: a van and two men booked specifically for the purpose.

I pull my coat more tightly around myself in order to encourage some warmth from it. I need to move. I need to get going on this before time spins away and he escapes again. I stride through the grounds until I am on the main road, and it’s not long before I’m back in Paddington – Purple Zone. The headache is now in full flow, but this is too important. I push through the glass doors of Paddington Green Police Station. As I step through the doorway, I make sure my hair is still tied neatly away. Then at the desk I ask for Blake or Conway.

‘Just on their way now, sir,’ the officer says and indicates a place where I can sit.

He calls me sir. It’s not lost on me, the power of these clothes. Then a few minutes later a young man comes and ushers me to a room to wait. A second later Conway and Blake enter, their faces cold. I stand.

‘I need to speak to you about the murder at 42B.’

The two of them exchange looks.

‘Shall we get this done now?’ he says to her.

She looks straight at me and nods. ‘Come on. Let’s get an interview suite.’

I am escorted into a room similar to the one I was interviewed in twice before. Blake and Conway are wearing the faces of strangers and sit me down without looking at me. Once they have settled themselves and the tapes are unsealed, Conway laces his fingers together.

‘Xander Shute, we are arresting you on suspicion of wasting police time. I won’t repeat the caution but so’s you understand, the caution still applies. You don’t have to say anything but it could harm your defence if you don’t mention something you later say in court.’

I nod. And then, remembering, I say it out loud, ‘Yes.’

‘On the last occasion you were here, do you recall you made an allegation to me that there had been a murder? And that you witnessed that murder? Of a woman?’

‘Yes,’ I say slowly.

‘First of all, do you agree that that is what you said to me?’ Conway says seriously.

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘And you went on to describe the attacker as being a white male in his late twenties–early thirties?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you gave an address of 42B Farm Street in Mayfair in London?’

‘Yes. You know all this.’

‘And you gave a description of the interior of the premises where you alleged the murder took place?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you stand by those details that you gave?’ he says, crossing his arms. I notice one cuff of his blue shirt is frayed on the fold.

‘Yes, I do. Where’s this going?’ I say, confusion growing.

‘Then just remind me please how you described the inside of the premises.’

I know I am pulling an expression of puzzlement as I speak but I can’t fight it.

‘Well, there’s a black front door down the side of the main steps. With a number 42B on it.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, nodding, tugging at an earlobe.

‘There’s a hallway once you go through,’ I say, closing my eyes to let the detail come flooding through. ‘Victorian tiles on the floor. Black on white. There’s a Tiffany lampshade on the light. A large gilt mirror – ornate. Cream walls I think. And then at the far end of the corridor, there’s another door and when you open that there’s a kind of double room. As if it’s been knocked through. A fireplace ahead and to the left. Two leather chesterfield sofas opposite one another. Bookcases along the walls. A dining table and six chairs in the other half of the room. Mahogany. Silk patterned rug on the floor. Do you need me to go on?’

‘No, thank you. That accords roughly with our note of what you said last time,’ he says.

‘And are you maintaining this account, Xander?’ Blake asks.

‘Yes, of course I am,’ I say, still confused by what is coming. I know something is coming, the questions are setting it up. I just don’t know what it can be.

‘Two uniformed police officers attended the address on the night that you reported the murder and confirmed that there were no traces of a struggle or any assault, let alone any fatalities.’

‘Yes. You told me that last time,’ I say. ‘And you spoke to the guy that lives there. Ebadi? He had an alibi. I know that. But I have more information about that – information that changes things,’ I add.

To my surprise they ignore what I say and continue with their questions as if I haven’t spoken. ‘Showing the suspect exhibit PJW/2. Mr Shute, would you look at this footage please?’

Blake has opened her laptop and is playing what looks like CCTV film.

‘What’s that?’ I say. ‘CCTV?’

Without looking up, she says, ‘No. It’s the footage from the body-worn camera by the searching officers.’ She spins the laptop round so that we can both see it.

‘As you can see that is him approaching number 42B. Do you recognise the door?’

‘Yes. That’s it,’ I say.

‘Okay and in a minute, you’ll see the gentleman opening the door. Mr Ebadi.’

I watch, transfixed. This was almost the scene from this morning. I think of the neighbour, Mrs Wilbert, her hand poised over the doorbell. I shake my head and focus again on the screen. The door opens and I see a face. I recognise him from the still they showed me last time. I look carefully. He looks different now that I see him in motion. Different from the man I saw in the half-light strangling the woman.

The officer wearing the camera and this Ebadi speak for a few seconds. Ebadi is smiling at first, and then there is a look of concern, confusion even. He nods after a moment and waves the police in without hesitation. But I know why that is. He doesn’t care about the police coming in because the body has been moved. He will have cleaned the place up so confidently that twenty-four hours later, the police are being ushered in without pause. Either he knows that the police will not find anything, or he’s calculated that his chances are better if he lets them in now, so he won’t have to see them return with warrants flashing.

The footage runs on until Conway presses pause, and I, too, freeze. My mouth drops. I stop breathing.

This cannot be.

The feeling I have now is of the world coming to a halt on its axis. It seems like the Universe is crashing past me at speed. And I am just standing there, motionless.

It’s not the same feeling as the one I had after Rory. That was disbelief. Reality had been exposed simply as mist.

I feel myself mentally leave the room under the pressure of the moment.

Rory.

Pulling at me again.

We didn’t really recover from our teenage fighting. We tried, as adults, to relegate the past into insignificance, but instead it began to invade all our spaces and push us apart whenever we tried to draw near. It didn’t matter whether it was neutral ground or not, it seemed like neither of us could cross the bridge to reach the other. I wonder now whether I could have tried harder, but when I put myself in that space, I remember that I did try. I went to his new flat soon after he bought it. He never came to me. But I did go to him.

I arrived at his building in Ludgate Circus, bringing with me the heat from the street. It was one of those buildings that had been ‘reinvented’. Traces of a former glass-warehouse or coffee-vault or some kind of faded glory were there deep in the brick. And now, crowding and rocketing land prices had polished the rust away and called it new.

An old lift clanked into place and I remember the smell of it as I pulled the concertina gate across and waited as it lurched between floors. My pulse quickened as it always did when I was in a confined space. Then finally, after those slowly ground-out minutes, the doors opened.

For some reason I had expected there to be a party, in full flow. Girls in gold dresses and spiked heels, men with rolled sleeves gesticulating in the air. I expected the balcony looking out on to the street below to be crammed with laughing and smoking. I expected it to live up to my vision of his life as a high-flying hedge fund guy. Instead I walked in to this vale of silence perforated only by muted jazz weeping from a pair of Wharfedale Diamonds.

‘Rory,’ I said and hugged him awkwardly, a bottle of champagne in one hand. ‘Congratulations on the new place.’

‘Thanks, Xand,’ he said, and waved me in. ‘No Grace?’

‘Oh, you know Grace, she wanted to come, but double-booked herself as usual. Some Ayurvedic thing.’

‘Drink?’ he said, slipping away into an open-plan kitchen.

‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘It’s still cold.’ I held out the bottle.

The flat was just as it should have been for Rory. Polished parquet ran the length and breadth of the place. Rugs were laid artfully here and there. A few had even climbed on to the walls. The windows were impressive: floor to ceiling, with views across London. I stood at one and slid it open.

‘I like the windows,’ I said. ‘Beginning to wish that we’d got something like this. All this light.’

‘Yes,’ he said, emerging from a glass wall. ‘The light’s good.’

The champagne he passed me tasted sharp and fresh.

‘So, seen much of Dad?’ he asked, taking a hand through his copper hair.

‘No. Busy house-hunting,’ I said and leaned out into the view below.

He nodded and breathed it in with me.

‘If you get a chance, you should. He’d like to see you,’ he said, turning his face away.

There was an edge to the comment, or I felt one.

‘It’s you he likes to see,’ I said.

The air was warm, summery. Up at this height all the heat and moisture had gone from it, so the breeze when it came, came with a cool undertow.

‘Look, Xander, whatever you think about him, now is not the time to hang on to it. He’s fading. It won’t be that long now.’

I looked across at him and saw the same childhood face. Eyes like smudges. Hair tousled as if fresh from sleep.

‘I’ll go and see him next week. Take a bottle of that Macallan that he likes,’ I said at last.

When I turned I saw that Rory had walked back inside. The atmosphere began slowly to fizz in a familiar but unsettling way. I went in and saw Rory’s silhouette behind the glass wall of the open kitchen.

‘What?’ I said, rounding the partition.

‘I didn’t say anything.’ He busied himself with some dishes that didn’t need the attention.

‘No, but you meant something,’ I said, staring at him.

‘Look, if you’re pissed off about the drinking, don’t take him a bottle. You don’t have to be an arse about it.’

I didn’t know whether I was still pissed off about the drinking, or something else. They both drank. Mum and Dad. But the words come loose from nowhere.

‘You didn’t have to put up with him when he was drunk,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ he said, looking up at me.

‘You didn’t have him, reeking of—’ and then I stopped, letting the words founder. In the silence that followed, I saw the realisation dawning.

‘What are you saying, Xander?’ he said after a minute.

‘Forget it.’ I headed towards the front door.

‘No, Xander. This is important,’ he said, coming after me. ‘If you’ve got something to say—’

‘See you, Rory. I have to go,’ I said, harassing the locks to work the latch.

He stood, arms folded, behind me. ‘Well? Have you got anything to say?’

‘Mr Shute? Have you got anything to say?’

The screen blinks at me, strobing between the paused frames. I am back in the police station. The video plays on in my head. The number 42B, in brass against the black door. My brain is whirring, making and unmaking connections when they don’t fit. I am familiar with this process. It is, even in the teeth of this madness, comforting having my mind untangling the puzzle.

I know how this resolves itself. Soon, the solution will crystallise and emerge whole. I know my mind will get there: it’s slower than Rory’s, but still good.

I stare at the screen which just looks back. I cast my eyes away and shut them tight.

Untangle it.

The dryness in my throat won’t be swallowed away. I can’t make sense of it. The familiar warmth of resolution doesn’t arrive. My head thuds and the room begins to close in on me.

In every solution, time is a constant. So, what is the answer to this? What can the answer be to this? My heart begins to pick up pace as the realisation descends to its perfect end.

I am finished.

I stare at the screen.

The floor – the Victorian tile – is gone. In its place is smooth, pale grey marble, threaded through with darker veins. The walls are no longer painted cream but one side is entirely mirrored in what looks like a single glazed panel. Reflected against it, the opposite wall is decorated in tiny mosaic tiles. Tiny spots of starlight shine from the ceiling.

My mouth is open but there is nothing to say.

Blake lets the video run on. The camera and the other officer follow Ebadi along the hall and into the house. Marble again on the floor, running straight through, its gloss firing light in every direction. As the camera turns I see the fireplace is there, but it too is cased in grey spidery marble. The camera turns briefly again and instead of the chesterfields there is a white sofa in a large L. The lens darts round with the movement of the officer and as it does I see the dining table is gone. Where it once stood, there is a huge, ornate glass coffee table bordered by what look to be cushions. Then I look more carefully and see that it is not a coffee table I am looking at but a sunken dining table. It has been dropped about three feet into the ground.

All since Tuesday night.